The four astronauts aboard Orion finished their trip around the Moon and were set to come home Friday evening, with the capsule expected to splash down off the coast of San Diego at around 20:00 US EDT. After that, the USS John P. Murtha will recover the crew and ferry them back toward their families.
Navy officers on board the USS John P. Murtha will pick up the astronauts after splashdown and make sure they get the medical treatment they need before returning home. The recovery ship is the last stop in a mission that has carried NASA’s Artemis II crew farther from Earth than any humans have flown in more than 50 years.
The return closes a mission that began after delays and technical issues pushed the first crewed Moon flight in half a century back from earlier plans. The spacecraft lifted off from Florida and entered Earth’s orbit, then sent the four astronauts on a loop around the Moon as NASA pushed ahead with its broader lunar program.
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Victor Glover, speaking to media from space on the way home, said the crew was eager to share what they had seen with the world. The astronauts also used video link time to send messages for their families and talk about the trip so far, offering a brief view of life inside Orion as they worked through tests in flight.
Those tests included practicing manoeuvring the capsule, part of the checks NASA wanted from a mission designed to prepare the agency for what comes next. NASA is planning for a possible lunar landing by 2028, but this flight is not meant to touch down on the Moon. Its value lies in proving the spacecraft and crew can do the work needed for a future landing.
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That is why Friday’s splashdown matters now. If Orion comes down on time and the Murtha’s recovery team brings the astronauts home safely, NASA will have cleared one more major hurdle on the way back to the Moon. The question left is not whether the crew saw enough to inspire the next step. It is whether the systems that brought them this far will keep working when the agency asks them to go farther.
